Northern Ireland suffer in Lennon's absence

By William Johnson

12:01AM BST 22 Aug 2002

Northern Ireland (0) 0 Cyprus (0) 0

The shock withdrawal of their captain Neil Lennon yesterday afternoon cast a cloud over Northern Ireland before, during and after their final warm-up match for their difficult European Championship qualifying programme.

Sammy McIlroy and his unheralded players were looking for an encouraging victory over fellow minnows Cyprus to raise morale for the demanding trip to Spain in October which will be swiftly followed by a Windsor Park date against the other Group Six favourites Ukraine.

Instead they suffered a tortuous 90 minutes of deadlock with goalmouth incident at a premium. McIlroy said beforehand that he and the squad was "devastated" by the death threat issued to Lennon which prevented the Celtic midfielder from captaining his country for the first time on home soil and that devastation filtered through the ranks to bring about a depressing performance.

The withdrawal of Lennon provided an unexpected opportunity for Wigan's Peter Kennedy to win his 14th cap in a hastily reshuffled midfield quartet which saw Damien Johnson move into Lennon's central role alongside Kevin Horlock.

Keith Gillespie, who was scheduled to start on the left flank, instead patrolled down the right and proved to be Northern Ireland's most effective player in a low-key opening 45 minutes.

The Blackburn winger's dazzling change of pace frequently took him clear of his pursuers but his colleagues lacked the guile to profit from the resultant crosses in that first half.

James Quinn, the former West Bromwich striker who now plays for the Dutch club Willem II, was particularly guilty of wasting Gillespie's impressive approach work.

He was found in space 10 yards out by a teasing centre but badly mistimed a header which bounced harmlessly in front of a relieved goalkeeper Nikos Panayiotou.

Moments earlier a low Gillespie ball had also located Quinn whose hurried shot skimmed wide of the far post, while the striker, who had managed only three goals in his previous 25 internationals, was also off-target with an early rising drive.

Northern Ireland thought they had broken the deadlock after 19 minutes when Mark Williams, promoted to captain in the absence of Lennon, volleyed neatly into the net. However, the referee refused to allow the goal because he had not signalled for Kennedy to take a free-kick.

Otherwise the Irish were subdued before the interval, their only serious shot on target being a Horlock effort which bounced into the arms of the goalkeeper. Cyprus were little better at that stage, their only first-half threat coming when Marinos Satsias broke through, only to shoot too close to Maik Taylor.

The Cypriots almost snatched a surprise lead when Marios Agathokleous, a second-half substitute, brought a more testing save from Taylor.

Northern Ireland had lacked penetration in that second period, a George McCartney shot across the face of the goal proving an isolated attacking incident until Johnson worked his way through to force a double save from Panayiotou.

A friendly which had been played in a good spirit threatened to spiral out of control when Agathokleous backed into his marker Williams who reacted angrily, the Cypriot striker falling to the ground in apparent pain.